If you think that 1998 was the last time the 2 leagues' best faced off, then you might as well stop watching. Nobody's thinking of the reg season anymore in October. Put it out of your head, not just so that you'll enjoy the playoffs again, but because in October, the reg season truly now is ancient history. If I had a dime for every time a player/coach/broadcaster said that... But they say it because it is true.

And if you think the best two teams always play in the World Series you're completely out of your mind. The regular season doesn't matter in terms of who advances and who doesn't, but (and this is like... 2nd grade math here) only a complete lunatic would take 7 or 8 data points over 162. Again, I'm not saying the Tigers didn't deserve to be in the World Series because they met the criteria to be there, they just weren't the best team in the AL last year. I'm quite certain by now your stance is just a big joke because it's unraveling to such absurdity I'm laughing as I type this, but anyone who would argue that the Tigers were the best team in the AL in 2012 (again, different from being the team that should be in the World Series) is just a nutcase.

And if you think the best two teams always play in the World Series you're completely out of your mind. The regular season doesn't matter in terms of who advances and who doesn't, but (and this is like... 2nd grade math here) only a complete lunatic would take 7 or 8 data points over 162. Again, I'm not saying the Tigers didn't deserve to be in the World Series because they met the criteria to be there, they just weren't the best team in the AL last year. I'm quite certain by now your stance is just a big joke because it's unraveling to such absurdity I'm laughing as I type this, but anyone who would argue that the Tigers were the best team in the AL in 2012 (again, different from being the team that should be in the World Series) is just a nutcase.

That's irrelevant. If you are going to demand the best teams play for the championship, and you determine that the regular season record determines who is the best team, everyone plays the same schedule and rosters are frozen. The Red Sox and Marlins can't trade players mid season. The White Sox visited Boston when Red Sox when they were at their strongest roster-wise, placing them at a disadvantage in the race. For that matter, NL teams that played the Red Sox didn't deal with the same Red Sox that teams faced at the end of the season. The Yankees benefited from the collapse of the Red Sox and Blue Jays. The Giants had to deal with an infusion of talent on the Dodgers.

Baseball doesn't exist in a vacuum where all wins are created equal. Teams play know it is a six-month season where the goal is to win the division, with a very limited wild card possibility as a consolation. They sometimes lose some games because they rest some players, taking the chance because they believe that it will help them win more and more important games later. Teams mature during the long season. Some players improve. Some wear out. The baseball season is about parallel divisional races, each with their own dynmaics. The Tigers or White Sox might have had a better record if they had played in a different division. (The White Sox were 37-35 against Central teams and 20-12 against the West.) The baseball season is messy.

At the end of the 2012 season, the Tigers were better than the A's, who lost the deciding game at home. The Tigers were much better than the Yankees, who similarly went the distance in beating the league's wild card team. The Tigers were the best chance the American League had to win the World Series because the Yankees had nothing left. The National League side was more of a contest. It might have gone differently if Strasburg hadn't been shut down, but the team decided he was going to be no longer part of the pitching staff before October rolled around. I could do without the wild card, but otherwise, any team making the NL postseason could have been considered the league's best.

It is less of a joke than if you eliminated the divisions and invited second- or lower-place teams to complete for the championship. It is far less a joke than the NFL, which determines championships with teams playing different schedules and has a single-elimination playoff system. It is less of a joke than the NBA or NHL where the regular season determines seeding for the championship tournament. It is less of a joke than the NCAA Division 1 men's basketball tournament where teams that don't win their conferences, sometimes teams that finish fourth or fifth, play in the single-elimination tournament to determine a champion, as if the conference tournaments that precede the national tournament didn't exist.

If you are going to have playoffs to determine a champion, you are going to have fans complaining of inequities. More legitimate, is the contention in Curt Flood's autobiography that the World Series (he played in it in 1964, 1967 and 1968, the year before division play was introduced) is a joke because the players are too tired. I asked him about it a couple of years before his death, and it was something he continue to believed in strongly, although I have never heard any other player voice the same concern. But calling the World Series a joke because it doesn't determine a true champion, though, ignores the point of competition.

And this year, the Tigers, far from being the sevemth-best team in the league, emerged as the best chance the American League had to compete in the World Series with the stronger National League postseason teams, saving the Yankees the embarrassment.

It is less of a joke than the NCAA Division 1 men's basketball tournament where teams that don't win their conferences, sometimes teams that finish fourth or fifth, play in the single-elimination tournament to determine a champion, as if the conference tournaments that precede the national tournament didn't exist.

Your core hypothesis is basically ridiculous, but I had to pull this nugget of complete absurdity out. How is the baseball system any less of a joke than the Div 1 basketball playoff? How can you, on one hand, defend the MLB season and it's playoff system by stating "the goal is to get to the postseason" and then attack Div 1. basketball when the exact same parameters are here. If the goal is simply to get to the tournament, what difference does it make if that teams finishes 3rd or 4th in conference but plays well in the NCAA Tournament? It's absolutely no more ludicrous than defending a **** team like Detroit, who would have been realistically eliminated from the playoffs in 5 of the 6 divisions, backs into the playoffs, catches a hot streak and suddenly their representing the league as its champion? ****ing ridiculous.

Your argument is so utterly fradulent and self-serving. The fact that you can cherry pick "bla bla bla wins from the regular season that contradict my argument are irrelevant" but "dur dur dur wins in the playoffs that support my argument... TOTALLY relevant." The Tigers were a better team than the Yankees (and probably the A's, too) for precisely 1 week. Bully for them it just happened to be the week they got to play them in the playoffs. Does that make them automatically better? No, it just makes them lucky bastards.

This is the same kind of ****ty arguments my brother pulls from his Cub-fan blogs and emails to me so we can laugh at them together.

Your core hypothesis is basically ridiculous, but I had to pull this nugget of complete absurdity out. How is the baseball system any less of a joke than the Div 1 basketball playoff? How can you, on one hand, defend the MLB season and it's playoff system by stating "the goal is to get to the postseason" and then attack Div 1. basketball when the exact same parameters are here. If the goal is simply to get to the tournament, what difference does it make if that teams finishes 3rd or 4th in conference but plays well in the NCAA Tournament? It's absolutely no more ludicrous than defending a **** team like Detroit, who would have been realistically eliminated from the playoffs in 5 of the 6 divisions, backs into the playoffs, catches a hot streak and suddenly their representing the league as its champion? ****ing ridiculous.

Your argument is so utterly fradulent and self-serving. The fact that you can cherry pick "bla bla bla wins from the regular season that contradict my argument are irrelevant" but "dur dur dur wins in the playoffs that support my argument... TOTALLY relevant." The Tigers were a better team than the Yankees (and probably the A's, too) for precisely 1 week. Bully for them it just happened to be the week they got to play them in the playoffs. Does that make them automatically better? No, it just makes them lucky bastards.

This is the same kind of ****ty arguments my brother pulls from his Cub-fan blogs and emails to me so we can laugh at them together.

Detroit was the best team in the American League at the end of the season. This should have been obvious to anyone who watched them destroy the Yankees. They weren't lucky. They were better. The Yankees regular season record and how it was achieved was irrelevant. That is why you have a playoff system. Baseball's postseason is better than any other playoff system there is.

My NCAA point is an extrapolation of your logical argument. The point is to get to the tournament, except it's not a matter of achievement, but often a ridiculous matter of opinion. And then you face a single elimination tournament. Even if you made it more legitimate by limiting the tournament to winners of conference tournaments, it would still be single elimination. And you no matter how good your division is, you can't play in MLB championship tournament if you are the fifth best team in your division. By contrast, the College World Series is the best method of determining an NCAA champion despite recent concessions.

If you are going to complain that the World Series is a joke, you could at least be consistent and condemn all major sports champships. Otherwise, you're just triggering the language filter without a consistent argument.

The baseball postseason isn't perfect, but it is better at determining an overall champion than any other major team sport.

And if you think the best two teams always play in the World Series you're completely out of your mind. The regular season doesn't matter in terms of who advances and who doesn't, but (and this is like... 2nd grade math here) only a complete lunatic would take 7 or 8 data points over 162. Again, I'm not saying the Tigers didn't deserve to be in the World Series because they met the criteria to be there, they just weren't the best team in the AL last year. I'm quite certain by now your stance is just a big joke because it's unraveling to such absurdity I'm laughing as I type this, but anyone who would argue that the Tigers were the best team in the AL in 2012 (again, different from being the team that should be in the World Series) is just a nutcase.

Dude, it is not 7 data points vs 162. You're not understanding. TDog explained it to you very coherently and thoroughly, but I'll still add a little in.

FORGET THE REGULAR SEASON WHEN THE PLAYOFFS BEGIN. MLB hits the reset button. The reg season is done. Out of the way. In the garbage can. Burned to a crisp. Vaporized. No more. Kaput.

The announcers, players and coaches tell us this every freaking year. TBS and ESPN's opening lines to their initial playoff broadcasts will usually reiterate this. "It's time for the postseason, where we begin anew!" "It's time to find who is the best in Major League Baseball!"

When players/coaches from higher seeded teams are interviewed, they'll usually say "Well, the regular season is ancient history now, and now we have to focus on this playoff series." And/or "This is what it all comes down to."

Do you even watch baseball at all?

When the White Sox clinched the best record in the AL in 2005, how many here said, "Well, there ya go! We're the best in the AL no matter what happens now!"? No one did. No one celebrated. We were all on pins and needles for the playoffs. Don't you think if our record clinched AL supremacy, we'd have celebrated? But no champagne was popped. There wasn't even a light applause. We were nervous as all ****.

The regular season is 162 data points to determine who goes to the main part of the season: the playoffs. Then we start anew, in a decent format, IMO, to decide the champ. They can't play best-of-20, which I'm sure you'd prefer. Best of 7 is fine for me. Best of 5 is meh, but oh well, it doesn't nullify the supremacy test. Neither does the WC game, those teams had their chance to avoid that 1-off.

If Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt finished last among those who qualified to the Olympics, are they no longer the best? While they celebrate their gold, will you walk up to the podium and say "Look guys, they came in last among the qualified. They aren't the best, Joe Schmo and Duncan Mo, who didn't even medal, are the best. They qualified head and shoulders above the rest. Data points, guys!!! Data points!!!"?

The announcers, players and coaches tell us this every freaking year. TBS and ESPN's opening lines to their initial playoff broadcasts will usually reiterate this. "It's time for the postseason, where we begin anew!" "It's time to find who is the best in Major League Baseball!"

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

Are you ****ing kidding me? You're trying to prove your point with the wit and wisdom of people like Chris Berman, Skip Bayless, and Tim McCarver? This is seriously a joke right? I must be on Candid Message Board at this point, no?

What POSSIBLE reason could talking chuckleheads who draw their paychecks from media outlets who sell ad time during broadcasts have to church up the World Series into something that it's not? Hmmmmmmmmm... What's your next brilliant argument going to be, the ShamWow is the best towel ever AND I TOTALLY KNOW THIS because Vince, the guy who sells them on TV at 3 AM, told me it's true!!!

You dare question MY fanhood and then when pressed for your own opinion, you take the sides of ESPN and TNT? Give. Me. A. ****ing. Break.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TDog

Detroit was the best team in the American League at the end of the season. This should have been obvious to anyone who watched them destroy the Yankees. They weren't lucky. They were better. The Yankees regular season record and how it was achieved was irrelevant. That is why you have a playoff system. Baseball's postseason is better than any other playoff system there is.

My NCAA point is an extrapolation of your logical argument. The point is to get to the tournament, except it's not a matter of achievement, but often a ridiculous matter of opinion. And then you face a single elimination tournament. Even if you made it more legitimate by limiting the tournament to winners of conference tournaments, it would still be single elimination. And you no matter how good your division is, you can't play in MLB championship tournament if you are the fifth best team in your division. By contrast, the College World Series is the best method of determining an NCAA champion despite recent concessions.

If you are going to complain that the World Series is a joke, you could at least be consistent and condemn all major sports champships. Otherwise, you're just triggering the language filter without a consistent argument.

The baseball postseason isn't perfect, but it is better at determining an overall champion than any other major team sport.

I'm not even going to bother arguing over what playoff system is better or worse because you've demonstrated plenty of times on these forums a proud ignorance of pretty much every other major sport so to sit here and try to make any argument would be a complete waste of both of our time. Needless to say, I disagree with your assessment that baseball's play-off system is the best among the major sports at determing which team was the season's best. I personally can't imagine how anyone who calls themselves a baseball fan could not be insulted to see a team like the Tigers, who were under .500 until July, who qualified for the postseason based purely on the luck of geography (luckily for the Tigers, Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac founded Fort Pontchartrain du Detroit in Michigan and not say, in Buffalo, NY where the Tigers would have surely ended up in the AL East and they would have finished a dismal 4th place) can come within a breath of the World Title. It absolutely enrages me that the playoff system is set up so that the games I watch from April to September, that I live and die with every night are rendered completely and utterly meaningless by such a sham system that rewards complete and utter mediocrity. This is not what baseball is supposed to be about. It's not what made the game great a generation ago. It only exists to line the owners' pockets with faux-drama fueled TV revenue at the cost of the historic integrity of the game.

The irony is that the original point of this thread was to determine why the World Series has lost so much of it's luster, why don't kids sneak radios into their bedrooms and hang on the call of every pitch, why don't all Americans gather round their TVs and watch any more??? You know why? Because Americans aren't a bunch of stupid, gullible morons. They're smart enough to see that Bud and the owners are trying to sell them prime rib (THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP OF BASE BALL!!!) but it's really just a polished turd (here's a sack of **** team that had a losing record to the Indians).

You also seem to think my argument is born of some kind of sore loser mentality? I thought my dislike and genuine disgust over the Tigers' playoff run was pretty evident, but apparently I need to simplify it even more... I AM HAPPY THE GIANTS WON. They were the better team. You think I'm mad now, that we had a sham AL pennant winner? Bad enough Detroit snuck out of Oakland and then got to play a decimated and exhausted Yankees team, but to win the World Series? They would have been the biggest frauds since the Cardinals in 2006. I'm very content that San Francisco won. My anger is only born from the fact that MLB basically stuck a giant middle finger out to any fan who fancies to pay attention to the season for more than 4 weeks in October.

I'm not even going to bother arguing over what playoff system is better or worse because you've demonstrated plenty of times on these forums a proud ignorance of pretty much every other major sport so to sit here and try to make any argument would be a complete waste of both of our time. Needless to say, I disagree with your assessment that baseball's play-off system is the best among the major sports at determing which team was the season's best. I personally can't imagine how anyone who calls themselves a baseball fan could not be insulted to see a team like the Tigers, who were under .500 until July, who qualified for the postseason based purely on the luck of geography (luckily for the Tigers, Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac founded Fort Pontchartrain du Detroit in Michigan and not say, in Buffalo, NY where the Tigers would have surely ended up in the AL East and they would have finished a dismal 4th place) can come within a breath of the World Title. It absolutely enrages me that the playoff system is set up so that the games I watch from April to September, that I live and die with every night are rendered completely and utterly meaningless by such a sham system that rewards complete and utter mediocrity. This is not what baseball is supposed to be about. It's not what made the game great a generation ago. It only exists to line the owners' pockets with faux-drama fueled TV revenue at the cost of the historic integrity of the game.

The irony is that the original point of this thread was to determine why the World Series has lost so much of it's luster, why don't kids sneak radios into their bedrooms and hang on the call of every pitch, why don't all Americans gather round their TVs and watch any more??? You know why? Because Americans aren't a bunch of stupid, gullible morons. They're smart enough to see that Bud and the owners are trying to sell them prime rib (THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP OF BASE BALL!!!) but it's really just a polished turd (here's a sack of **** team that had a losing record to the Indians).

You also seem to think my argument is born of some kind of sore loser mentality? I thought my dislike and genuine disgust over the Tigers' playoff run was pretty evident, but apparently I need to simplify it even more... I AM HAPPY THE GIANTS WON. They were the better team. You think I'm mad now, that we had a sham AL pennant winner? Bad enough Detroit snuck out of Oakland and then got to play a decimated and exhausted Yankees team, but to win the World Series? They would have been the biggest frauds since the Cardinals in 2006. I'm very content that San Francisco won. My anger is only born from the fact that MLB basically stuck a giant middle finger out to any fan who fancies to pay attention to the season for more than 4 weeks in October.

By this argument, perhaps most soccer leagues around the world determine a champion in the best way. There are no playoffs, you have home-and-road games against the other teams in the league for a perfectly balanced schedule, and the team with the best record at the end is the champion.

By this argument, perhaps most soccer leagues around the world determine a champion in the best way. There are no playoffs, you have home-and-road games against the other teams in the league for a perfectly balanced schedule, and the team with the best record at the end is the champion.

"Genius is not replicable. Inspiration, though, is contagious, and multiform — and even just to see, close up, power and aggression made vulnerable to beauty is to feel inspired and (in a fleeting, mortal way) reconciled."
--David Foster Wallace, () "Roger Federer as Religious Experience"

Needless to say, I disagree with your assessment that baseball's play-off system is the best among the major sports at determing which team was the season's best. I personally can't imagine how anyone who calls themselves a baseball fan could not be insulted to see a team like the Tigers, who were under .500 until July, who qualified for the postseason based purely on the luck of geography (luckily for the Tigers, Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac founded Fort Pontchartrain du Detroit in Michigan and not say, in Buffalo, NY where the Tigers would have surely ended up in the AL East and they would have finished a dismal 4th place) can come within a breath of the World Title. It absolutely enrages me that the playoff system is set up so that the games I watch from April to September, that I live and die with every night are rendered completely and utterly meaningless by such a sham system that rewards complete and utter mediocrity. This is not what baseball is supposed to be about. It's not what made the game great a generation ago. It only exists to line the owners' pockets with faux-drama fueled TV revenue at the cost of the historic integrity of the game.

To be fair, doesn't this exact situation play out (often to a greater degree) in the other sports?

I suppose there is less of a reliance on division (and therefore geography) in the NBA, for example, which might be your point.

...
I'm not even going to bother arguing over what playoff system is better or worse because you've demonstrated plenty of times on these forums a proud ignorance of pretty much every other major sport so to sit here and try to make any argument would be a complete waste of both of our time. ... The irony is that the original point of this thread was to determine why the World Series has lost so much of it's luster, why don't kids sneak radios into their bedrooms and hang on the call of every pitch, why don't all Americans gather round their TVs and watch any more??? You know why? Because Americans aren't a bunch of stupid, gullible morons. They're smart enough to see that Bud and the owners are trying to sell them prime rib (THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP OF BASE BALL!!!) but it's really just a polished turd (here's a sack of **** team that had a losing record to the Indians).

You also seem to think my argument is born of some kind of sore loser mentality? I thought my dislike and genuine disgust over the Tigers' playoff run was pretty evident, but apparently I need to simplify it even more... I AM HAPPY THE GIANTS WON. They were the better team. You think I'm mad now, that we had a sham AL pennant winner? Bad enough Detroit snuck out of Oakland and then got to play a decimated and exhausted Yankees team, but to win the World Series? They would have been the biggest frauds since the Cardinals in 2006. I'm very content that San Francisco won. My anger is only born from the fact that MLB basically stuck a giant middle finger out to any fan who fancies to pay attention to the season for more than 4 weeks in October.

I don't know that I've demonstrated an ignorance of evey sport other than baseball, but I do ignore sports other than baseball and have stated as much. There is a difference. I was forced to play football when I was younger and would be healthier today if I hadn't. I had a hockey rink in my back yard, actually covered college basketball when I was in college and Indiana University basketball was a huge deal and you pretty much had to win your conference, be an elite second-place team or be Notre Dame to get into the NCAA tournamnet, although I haven't paid any attention to college basketball since leaving college. I also fenced in college, and it's the only Olympic sport that I can stand to watch. I don't pay attention to other sports, which isn't the same as asserting expertise on other sports in an Internet forum.

But you don't have to know the finer points of other sports to see the logical problems with your argument about people not caring about the World Series because it is a joke that would allow the Tigers to get in. I don't know and I don't care who played in the Super Bowl this year. But I am guessing that it wasn't the two teams with the best regular-season records. I don't know if one team was the equivalent of the Detroit Tigers, winning its division with a record dwarfed by a team that didn't make it through the playoffs, but if you have playoffs, it is bound to happen sometimes. If this is true, I also will assume that you didn't post post-Super Bowl that the Super Bowl was a joke, that the reason no one cares is that the best teams aren't playing for the championship. If I missed the thread where you did that, I apologize for assigning a loser mentality to your argument, which could only be inferred if you weren't complaining about the playoff systems in the other sports you follow at least as vehemently.

You don't need to follow other sports to look at their playoff formats to see that baseball does the best job of determining a champion, limiting the number of non-first-place teams, playing series rather than single-elmination and playing 162 games to determine division championships. and that point really addresses the core of your argument that baseball's playoff system is hurting the popularity of the World Series.

Following the logic of your argument, if the Tigers playing in the World Series is a big reason why the World Series has lost its luster, the Super Bowl loses its luster if you don't have the two best regular season teams competing. I am guessing whent that happens, ratings don't plummet.

You are attacking the baseball postseason. If the way that baseball determines a champion is the issue, then it would be a universal issue. Of course it isn't, because the point is not being the best team at midseason or spending the most days with the best record in the league, regardless of how unbalanced your schedule might be. The point is being the best team at the end of the season.

If you are going to have playoffs among teams that have had different degrees of success in the regular season playing to determine who is the champion for the season, you are going to have teams with weaker records playing for the championship. Baseball has a higher bar of regular-season success than any other sport. If you want the two teams with the best record to face for the championship, you don't have playoffs to determine who will play for the championship.

Are you ****ing kidding me? You're trying to prove your point with the wit and wisdom of people like Chris Berman, Skip Bayless, and Tim McCarver? This is seriously a joke right? I must be on Candid Message Board at this point, no?

Yes, you know more than guys whose livelihoods depend on following the game. Of course.

Quote:

It absolutely enrages me that the playoff system is set up so that the games I watch from April to September, that I live and die with every night are rendered completely and utterly meaningless by such a sham system that rewards complete and utter mediocrity.

This says it all right here. You admit that the reg season is meaningless. Which is why you can't judge the Tigers based on it. Judge non-playoff teams by their reg seasons. Judge playoff teams by the games that mattered: the playoffs.